SC2 E-Sports Thread

[Falaras]

oGsTop was Ro16 in GSL1. Inca was Ro8 ( GSL1 ) and Ro16 ( GSL2). Top and Inca are good but they are nowhere near the best of the best. What happened if they sent out like Foxer, Fruitdealer, NsPGenius, NesTea, Kyrix? The result may be different.

Inca and Top are top tier, as are all of those players. GSL is probably the worst tournament out there for judging skill (well...maybe dreamhacks BO1 was worse) and I honestly do believe Inca is a better player than either Foxer or Nestea. I mean...Huk is probably as good a player as Nestea/Foxer (Although you can't say anyone is better than anyone, I prefer to just put players into tiers) and he didn't even make it into the GSL.
Edit: Also with the whole Foreigners even think the GSL is more important....duh. It has nothing to do with it being Korean though, its the fucking 90,000 dollar prize. Hell last SOTG Painuser and Idra where both complaining about how they couldn't make it to dreamhack and that isn't because "Dreamhack is important because it's a swedish tournament!" it's because the prize money was high.

[geno]

Not sure if the GSL thing is aimed at me, that is exactly what I meant/said, lol. Money is money, it's going to draw the best players from around the world. Dreamhack had a pretty nice prize pool, but if anyone had to pick between their GSL match and Dreamhack, the choice was obvious (for both the korean and non-korean competitors). So Dreamhack shouldn't be classified as the best non-koreans + some koreans who dropped out of GSL, because that's just not true.

[Thunder]

I'm of the opinion that in this state of the game any player can takes games off of any other player. Lots of games are decided in the first 10 minutes based on a superior build order. Examples of this would be every zerg losing to double rax pressure if they went hatch first. There was a time where that build was standard and nobody knew that all-in-ish pressure would be insta-win. I think genius was a victim of something like that when he lost that game to TSL_Rain where genius went for colossus after expanding and only having like 8 gateway units defending. It's a silly build in retrospect but genius obviously used it because it got him wins.

As the game moves along trends come up and then the next trend is like a direct counter to the previous one; that's going to continue until there's just a bunch of "safe" and standard build orders that will become true standards. That's when people can really say who's better than who because at the moment a lot of games are decided by the flip of a coin.

[Falaras]

Coolest opening ever from Jinro.

[Misuicide]

fuck jinro is awesome!

[Falaras]

I heard you like 2 basing.

[geno]

That 2rax > expand > 4rax opening seems sooooooooo strong. I'm curious to see how zergs are going to deal with it more effectively in the future, because so far in this tournament, it has not gone well at all.

[Falaras]

It did like no damage the first two games.

[Thunder]

Man, my hopes were so high when idra won steppes. And then close positions metal for the lose.

[Misuicide]

It still puts a lot of pressure on the zerg player cause you are forced to pull workers off the line cause of early aggression

[Falaras]

It still puts a lot of pressure on the zerg player cause you are forced to pull workers off the line cause of early aggression

He had to pull 4 Drones for like 30 seconds to get a Spine up, the terran probably lost more money delaying his orbital for the second rax.

[Thunder]

I believe that if the initial attack doesn't work by terran it's ok for both races; however, the longer it goes on I think the terran can build his army with constant SCV/mule production and then it becomes difficult for the zerg to balance drone/unit production.

Get too many units: the terran can survive it with repairing SCVs and the zerg will lose later.
Get too many drones: lose to the inevitable push.

The good zergs just need to get used to these timings since there are just so many of them throughout early/mid game.
That's my take on it.

[Misuicide]

He had to pull 4 Drones for like 30 seconds to get a Spine up, the terran probably lost more money delaying his orbital for the second rax.

Yes but you saw the unit counter later on after that push, it was 17 SCV to 14 drones, plus a mule. The terran was way ahead after the push, hense the pressure, 30 seconds is huge early game

[Falaras]

Yes but you saw the unit counter later on after that push, it was 17 SCV to 14 drones, plus a mule. The terran was way ahead after the push, hense the pressure, 30 seconds is huge early game

And the zerg had an expansion fully up and ready to produce drones while the terran had 2 barracks. The terran really wasn't ahead at that time, IdrA just got to greedy and close positions really hurt him. Not to mention IdrA blind expanded and not many zergs think that's a good idea at this point, 2 rax wouldn't be half as effective versus a pool first.

[geno]

It doesn't have to do any damage though, that's why it's such a strong build. It's not a risky build where you have to do damage with that hardcore pressure to stay in the game, it gets an expansion just as quickly and safely as Jinro's more oldschool standard non-pressure style but can still kill you early if you don't defend well. It's incredibly safe, gets up a really powerful economy, and ensures the pressure is always on the Zerg, not the Terran.

In the first game, MVP played it very smart, realizing that the pressure wasn't going to do much damage every time he pushed out, so he just pulled back and didn't sacrifice anything. Idra has a great defensive plan that game, but it didn't really net him any real advantage at all. The second game he didn't do the same build, he instead went 2 rax > expo > 2fact, which didn't work nearly as well.

[Falaras]

It doesn't have to do any damage though, that's why it's such a strong build. It's not a risky build where you have to do damage with that hardcore pressure to stay in the game, it gets an expansion just as quickly and safely as Jinro's more oldschool standard non-pressure style but can still kill you early if you don't defend well. It's incredibly safe, gets up a really powerful economy, and ensures the pressure is always on the Zerg, not the Terran.

In the first game, MVP played it very smart, realizing that the pressure wasn't going to do much damage every time he pushed out, so he just pulled back and didn't sacrifice anything. Idra has a great defensive plan that game, but it didn't really net him any real advantage at all. The second game he didn't do the same build, he instead went 2 rax > expo > 2fact, which didn't work nearly as well.

Tons of builds don't have to do damage to be useful, 6 pool on steps, chronoboosting harassment stalkers, there are tons of them. It's all about mind games and how your opponent reacts and getting map control. As far as not sacrificing anything, you don't magically get a second rax without sacrificing something (Either gas to delay tech or orbital).

[geno]

And the zerg had an expansion fully up and ready to produce drones while the terran had 2 barracks. The terran really wasn't ahead at that time, IdrA just got to greedy and close positions really hurt him. Not to mention IdrA blind expanded and not many zergs think that's a good idea at this point, 2 rax wouldn't be half as effective versus a pool first.

Yeah he only had 2 barracks. Oh, also a second command center.

You're right that a pool first build will defend it easily, but the other strength of the build is its flexibility. It's really easy to scout that pool first and adjust without any losses.

I don't see why you're refusing to acknowledge the strength of the build, lol, it's clearly very strong. No one is saying its game breaking or imbalanced so far as I can see, but it definitely is a strong build that Zerg's are probably (already) going to have a tough time dealing with.

[Falaras]

Yeah he only had 2 barracks. Oh, also a second command center.

You're right that a pool first build will defend it easily, but the other strength of the build is its flexibility. It's really easy to scout that pool first and adjust without any losses.

I don't see why you're refusing to acknowledge the strength of the build, lol, it's clearly very strong. No one is saying its game breaking or imbalanced so far as I can see, but it definitely is a strong build that Zerg's are probably (already) going to have a tough time dealing with.

It just seems that people are saying that you just magically get a second barracks and the build sacrifices nothing, which is ridiculous. It's the same as 2 gateways early, you sacrifice something. If you aren't delaying the ever so important Orbital you are not mining gas which closes all of your harassment opportunities, meaning you have to do some kinda of bio early timing attack to make it work effectively or else you are just going to go into the macro game without having done any harass except for killing 2-3 drones before their spine is up. It's always possible that delayed banshees or hellions could catch the player off guard but that's not a strength of the build it's a flaw of the opponent.

[geno]

Tons of builds don't have to do damage to be useful, 6 pool on steps, chronoboosting harassment stalkers, there are tons of them. It's all about mind games and how your opponent reacts and getting map control. As far as not sacrificing anything, you don't magically get a second rax without sacrificing something (Either gas to delay tech or orbital).

Are you kidding lol? 6 pool on steppes doesn't have to do damage to be useful? If someone hard walls, and loses no workers, I'm pretty sure any gold+ player can't lose to a 6pool. A blind counter will end the game. A dual stalker build is closer (in terms of the potential for harass), but you don't get a free expansion with the pressure like Terran does. There aren't any blind counters to 2rax>expo (at least not yet), because scouting allows the build to change with no relative loss (relative meaning compared to what your opponent loses).

And I think you are misinterpreting when I say no sacrifice. Clearly every decision in the game involves a sacrifice, doing one thing means you aren't doing another. I meant in terms of relative position in the game. Economy wise, they come out at worst even and most likely ahead compared to other strategies. The only ones that net a stronger economy would be a straight up 1rax FE, but accounting for the extra costs incurred by the zerg from the pressure, the difference isn't that big. Clearly pressure wise, few other builds compete, forcing the zerg down very specific tech patterns. Finally, tech wise, considering the viability of a pure MMM army very late into the game, and the speed of the double techlab stim/shield upgrades, very little is given up.

Anyways I'm done with this. I mean no offense by this, but you always seem just a little too defensive about Terran stuff like this, despite noone making any real serious/controversial claims. And anyways, as a protoss, I don't really care enough about the TvZ matchup beyond the spectator perspective (of which my only gripe with the current state of things is the prevalence of the mostly unrelated, and incredibly uninteresting to watch SCV all-ins).

[Misuicide]

I would really like to see more PvZ that is my weakest match up. Watching it in the proscene really helps a lot. Never seen a Protoss making it that far into the GSL really kind of sucks sometimes.